Here is a series of shots from chinasmack, the guy photo is a village official in China. He got pissed at the reporter and slugged her… life in China.

The dude slugged her as he was pissed with her questions…

So this case is not finished. I will go back to that village and help the villagers win their rights back!

So let us take a look at the village director who hit me — Tan Zhuanhe.

Here is the story:

“It was like this: I walked out of the village government office and he was there waiting for me. I told him that I was going to the village with him. He said fiercely: “Go, let’s go to the village!” I asked, “What kind of attitude is that?” Suddenly he swung his fist and hit me in the temple. I was stunned. I reacted and yelled: “What are you doing!”

He raised his hand and slapped me. Here is the moment captured by the camera [note: which is about 3 minutes
into the YouKu video].

Then he let a man wearing a t-shirt grab the camera in order to shut it off. My cameraman Wang Xiaolong hung on to the equipment, but that man snatched off the battery. During this period, the village director grabbed my throat and punched me twice again. He was later stopped by another village cadre.

During this episode, the town government party secretary named Ying stood on the side and watched with arms akimbo. He did not intercede. When I asked secretary Ying for help, he turned around and walked away.

I thought that this affair was over. But when I learned that they cut off the Qilu TV signal and neither apologized to nor compensated the villagers, I decided to struggle all the way with this Linyi village director!”

This matchmaking event was held in a northeast province in China and over 10,000 people showed up. The Chinese have pretty poor social skills in general and the cultural revolution did not help so they look for other means to find dates. I have heard that oftentimes they will chose the manner favored by our canine friends and merely attempt to sniff he hindquarters of a potential mate, but have never seen this corroborated. Anyway,,,, the following are photos of what such an event looks like in the great country of China.

These beauties took the low tech approach and hand wrote their specifics, height, weight age, species or sub-species..

The guy in the yellow is probably married and is their either for a- a free meal (see hand) or to cop a feel off someone 20 years younger than he.

China has come a long way since they had such poor treatment for the disabled, they used to chastise, punish or even harm them. But welcome to the more civilized China, they now take care of everyone. In the photos below (from chinasmack) you can see both the bad and good of China. Pay attention to the yellow or tannish tiles. These are tiles lain in the sidewalk to guide the blind. The blind need only stay on track, and follow these tiles and they will arrive at their destination.
Ah but this is China and China and her attention to detail and/or safety are vividly displayed here. If you look at the tile below, it leads directly over the embankment and into the water, thus any blind person following this path will be surprised/injured…this is China….

these yellow tiles are to help the blind, they show them where the road or path leads to so… presumably if a blind person were to follow this path they would end up getting wet….

China is about to celebrate one of her nearest and dearest holidays, its called the mid-autmn festival and in China, its one of my favorites. Let me take some time and explain its significance to you. After all, I have been here for three years and usually ask quite a few questions about the place and its culture, so here goes…

Well to be honest, I am not quite sure what the damned festival is about, and quite honestly it has nothing to do with ignorance or lack of trying, its just hte darned Chinese dont seem to know. Of course I could Google it or do a wiki search (here is answer to what it really is about), but to me, wiki is to be saved for special things or things I could not conceivably figure out using my own devices-(you know , questions like when will China democratize)…… But after living here, one would assume that finding a simple answer to such a question would be quite easy, but alas it is not.
Ok, so in modern times what this day means is a lot of happy Chinese who run around and give each other gifts of these delicious things called moon cakes that are round and have eggs and such inside. The streets are packed, and cars fill the roads and everyone seems to have forgotten about the misery in their lives and are at peace.
The history of the festival is a little more sketchy, but based on what I have been told by real Chinese, here goes…
It is a festival for a day when some guy or a deity or a lady fell in love with a mortal. The two couldnt get togthet to ‘knock boots’ because he was on the moon and she was here. Or maybe he came to visit and her parents were pissed cuz he lived on the moon or that he didnt own a home (to the Chinese this is a sin), or something like that. So the guy had to go back to the moon, but I guess he loved her so much he either killed himself or froze his face on the moon and that is why the moon cakes look the way they do.
Confused? So am I, I have even been told that Chinese movies regarding the day all have different endings, so there seems to be quite a bit of ambiguity about the day.
I guess we can summarize it by saying that the day is a day to give and receive gifts and eat a lot,,, which makes it pretty similar to most other festivals in China.